to think that it is not normal for 14 year olds to be sexually active?

[landrover]

Reading an earlier thread, one poster said that it is generally accepted that 14 to 15 year olds were sexually active!
Do you think that this is true? I am curious because I have a ten year old daughter, I need to know when I start worrying!

Well, I was going to reply but instead i'm fitting a lock on my teenager's door - it bloody well better not be normal!

I have never had sex in my bedroom at my parents. As a teenager I had sex in a lot of other places, not many of them comfortable.

I was 16 and so was my daughter.

Sex doesn't have to be a deep emotional experience as part of a committed loving relationship.

It can be good fun, no strings attached.

And that is why young people do it, because it is fun (and often linked with alcohol/drugs)

At 14 I would say it is very likely mutual masturbation/oral sex is occurring. Penetrative sex pretty common too.

Anal sex less rare than you might imagine - not because it is kinky but because the girl won't get pregnant/will retain her virginity.

Also, condoms very rarely used. Contraception is pill/implant/morning after pill. STDs not considered and often rife.

It can be good fun, no strings attached. Agreed, when you have the emotional maturity to have that outlook. I question where in general a 14 year old would. At that age many boys tend to chat about whats gone on to their mates and refer to the girl as a sket or a slag and that is not good fun at 14 years old.

This BBC link makes interesting reading.

Its alien to me, but the young people I worked with didn't see sex as a big deal or something special. No emotional maturity required. It was just something everyone did like having a drink, or hanging out. Not a private event just something that happened wherever/ whenever. No slagging go on as it was completely normalised - far more likely to be slagged for no sexual activity

I lost mine at 14 (14 years ago now) had been doing other stuff for about 6 months before, then didnt do anything else until i was 15, regularly sexually active from then. Used condoms and the contraceptive pill was VERY aware of STDS, mainly learnt from teen mags. I would say more than half my friends had done 'something' by 14, most had lost their virginity at 15, i have no regrets at all.

I would also say it very rarely happened at home, most often boyfriends house, friends houses, and outdoors.

There is a difference between full sex and being sexually active though. I think that most 14 year olds will have kissed someone, and may have done a bit more. Some will have definately had full sex.

I think it depends a bit on where you live- I grew up in an area where there wasn't really that much to do as a younger teenager. I had sex at 15 and a lot of my friends had sex around a similar age. A lot of us also drank and used other drugs before we were 18. It was a fairly nice town, not somewhere most people would think of as a rough area.

I think it is naive to think it is that easy to stop your children having sex. One of my friends lost her virginity at 13 in a field during the daytime. You can't really stop a 13 year old going out to meet friends, and you can't know everything they get up to once they have left your house. She was a nice, bright girl too. Not "one of the ones you would expect" whatever that means.

I do think 13 is a too young. 15 is more of a grey area- although it is still illegal, people don't magically mature overnight on their 16th birthday, and there is no real qualitative difference between a mature 15 year old and a teenager of a few years older. People go through puberty at different rates. By 15, I was "sexually mature" in the sense that I had nearly finished puberty.

I think the best thing you can do is educate your children about STIs and pregenancy and try to keep the lines of communication open in case something bad does happen.

ItsAllGoingToBeFine is right.

Sex is sex and love is love, they aren't the same, I think the two together can be great but its not always the case and often doesn't make it any less enjoyable.

I lost my virginity to a 'friend' because we wanted to try sex, and I then had sex with guys who I was and was not in a relationship with throughout my teens. I certainly didn't want an intense relationship and the idea of having a long-term boyfriend wasn't something my friends and I were particularly interested in we were all about the "we're young free and single so lets enjoy it attitude" I thin we felt we would have boyfriends as older teen or early twenties.

I have explained to my DC that with sex you can sometimes have feelings and other times its physical, but both is normal and not something you can control so you need to be conscious of how the person your having sex sees you and feels about you. Just because they don't attach feelings to that interaction it doesn't mean the other party doesn't.

A lot of younger teens are just having sex and having fun, I think as adults we often project our own emotions onto the situation rather than accept what those involved say they are feeling. I don't doubt many are having feelings and being hurt but I also am certain many are just enjoying themselves. As long as they're careful and are with people who are equally consenting then i think its fine. People mature at different rates.

I think it would probably be far more beneficial to our children to teach them that sex doesn't have to be accompanied by love, but I think it's a mistake to present it as something akin to going bowling with a mate because if it goes wrong the consequences are far more severe.

It's not just pregnancy and STIs, it's the risk of physical and emotional injury.

IMO until a child is able to grasp the finer nuances in the philosophical debate concerning respect and consent, they are not ready to have sex. They need to know that it is ok to demand respect and consideration and to trust their sexual partner even if they are not in a relationship and there is no love (or expectation of it) involved.

But having sex is emotional!!!! I can't see how telling children that sex is a no-strings recreational activity would be beneficial. When you see sex like that, you are too emotionally immature to have it, really.
And can 14 year olds go on the pill or are they too young?

why would they be too young

I don't agree, I don't think sex is always emotional, I haven't found that myself. I think its important to understand there can be an emotional response which isn't predictable or controllable, and that is just as normal as not having a strong emotional response.

Yes a 14 year old can go on the pill afaik.

Just wondering, in case their hormones have not settled down sorry bit clueless
I'm trying to get my head round the idea of non-emotional sex, and so far I can't. Good sex is highly intimate, and that implies opening up emotionally and becoming vulnerable.

cleofatra by arranging to meet a boy by the bushes in the park straight after school. Winter time, so dark very early. Planning to say they had been delayed getting a copy of homework. :( One of many instances.

If I could wish one thing for my DS or DD, it would be that their first time is meaningful and that means that it is with someone that they love. For me that means they are aged about 17 to 18.

Map number 22 Here gives the average age that people first have sexual intercourse in the UK as 18yrs.
Keep in mind that is 'average' so for everyone younger than this, there will be someone who is older than this.
Seems to back up the general consensus that people having sex at 14 is not, in any way commonplace.

brightnearly I agree with you about sex involving emotions because you make yourself very vulnerable while having it, but an emotional involvement is not the same thing as being in love. IMO thinking that emotional involvement IS the same things as love is what keeps people together who connect physically very well but are disastrous together otherwise.